In this undated photo released by Huawei, Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou is seen in a portrait photo.Huawei via AP

It’s safe to say that there will be ramifications after Canada arrested the CFO of Huawei technologies last weekend at the behest of the United States. And they will be felt both here in Canada and around the world.

Just what those will be, what form they will take, and what the next step is in this developing story is what everyone’s asking.

China is not at all happy that Meng Wanzhou was detained by our authorities at the Vancouver airport. They want her sent back to China instead of transferred to the United States and are even accusing Canada of violating Meng’s human rights.

“Detaining a person without providing an explanation has undoubtedly violated her human rights,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

While her court appearance Wednesday in British Columbia is under a publication ban (at Meng’s request), it’s been reported that the U.S. wants her in relation to suspected violations of the sanctions on Iran. That may be. But that’s not its only problem with Huawei, one of the world’s largest tech companies and phone manufacturers.

It’s hard to understate the significance of this news, which sent tech stops dropping upon its announcement.

Meng Wanzhou isn’t just a top-ranking employee of Huawei. She’s the daughter of billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei, who served in China’s People’s Liberation Army as an information technology specialist.

It’s the company’s perceived close connection to the Chinese Communist Party that has seen Canada’s Five Eyes intelligence sharing partners ban the company from participating in their developing 5G networks, something Canada has been urged to do as well.

Advances in 5G communications go hand-in-hand with what’s called the Internet of Things, where everyday electronics throughout our homes, businesses and even government are online and communicating with each other. There is serious concern that if a company like Huawei is involved in its implementation, then the Chinese government will have a literal window into our daily lives, secrets, innovations and more.

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knew about the arrest in advance, which he almost certainly did, it’s huge news that suggests he’s at least somewhat on board with U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to challenge China’s push for greater global dominance.

The problems go beyond privacy and intellectual property theft though. There are the human rights abuses. There’s China’s attempts to absorb Taiwan and militarize the small islands in the South China Sea. There are the concerns with the Belt Road Initiative, where they’re attempting to realign the economies of Europe and Africa to be more indebted to China and under Beijing’s sway. Then, there is the fact they don’t play fair in trade, the root of Trump’s long-standing grievance with the Middle Kingdom.

There will be a number of consequences to this for Canada. For starters, it’s now going to be near impossible to not join our Five Eyes partners in blocking Huawei from 5G. It also means the government’s current preoccupation with scoring some form of a trade deal with China now faces a major hurdle.

That said, the Liberal government is not wholly naive to the challenges posed by China. A prime example is Trudeau’s recent decision to block a Chinese state-owned enterprise from buying construction giant Aecon.

Retaliation is the big worry though. There’s always been a risk that North American business leaders will be arbitrarily detained in China, Gordon G. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, told me Thursday on my SiriusXM radio show. But now that risk has greatly increased. If that happens, we’ll have a situation resembling the hostage exchanges with the Soviets during the Cold War.

The list of concerns with China is immense and at first glance this big picture doesn’t have all that much to do with the arrest of a business executive at the Vancouver airport. But the incident could be a version of “the shot heard around the world,” as security expert Tom Quiggin described it to me.

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